Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Ali Afifi from EFG Hermes Research. We'd like to thank you all for joining the Nakilat 4Q 2022 results conference call. We have with us today on the call Mr. Hani Abuaker, CFO of Nakilat. Mr. Fotios Zeritis, Head of Investor Relations and ESG Reporting, and Mr. Waheed Sidiki, Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. I'd like to start off the call by congratulating Nakilat on another set of solid results, and without further ado, I'd like to hand over the call to Fotios. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Nakilat's Q4 2022 results conference call. For your convenience, the transcript of this call and presentation is already available on the company's investor relations section of our website. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Media or press is not allowed to attend on this investor relations conference call. Many of our remarks contain forward-looking statements. For factors that cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, please refer to slide two of investor relations presentation. In addition, some of our remarks contain non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of this is included in the note of this presentation. Waheed Sidiki, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager, will begin today's call with a brief discussion of group's earnings results.
After, I will give you overview of LNG shipping market, and finally, Nakilat CFO, Hani Abuaker, will walk you through the company's business outlook. We'll be happy to address your question. Now I would like to hand it over to Waheed. Waheed, please go ahead.
Thank you, Fotios. Welcome to Nakilat's full year 22 earnings result conference call. Our CFO, Hani Abuaker, our Head of Investor Relations, Fotios Zeritis, I will be your guides to today's presentation. I hope you and your families are safe and have enjoyed the exciting World Cup that showcased Qatar a couple of months ago. We hope that the world returns to peace soon. Our sincere gratitude goes out to our seafarers and shore-based staff for their dedication and continued efforts to bring clean energy to the world without any delay. Moving to our full year 2022 achievements. Nakilat is now successfully managing the fourth and final new build LNG carrier received during the month of January 2022 on time and on budget.
This is an indication of Nakilat's excellent technical and operational management, as well as our seafarers' commitment to growth and progress. Turning to slide 7 of the presentation, I'm pleased to announce Nakilat reported a profit of QAR 1.44 billion or 0.26 per share. This represents an increase of 6.3% quarter-over-quarter compared to last year. Nakilat has healthy and stable operational cash flows, as evidenced by the Q4 2022 EBITDA, which stands at QAR 3.53 billion, an increase by 6.9% year-on-year with a current ratio of 1.96. With a resilient business model and focus on growth, Nakilat is well positioned to continue creating an added value for its shareholders. This is further evidenced by a 13.3% return on equity.
Even in an environment where we're facing unprecedented interest rate hikes, Nakilat has been able to navigate these conditions and remain profitable and cash positive. For Q4 2022, the depreciation has decreased due to fully depreciating the previous drydock cycle, given that the new drydock cycle is set to commence in 2023, which will avoid overlapping cycles. This is a one-time non-cash event and it has no impact on Nakilat's economics. Going forward, a drydock provision will be accounted for each year to streamline depreciation year-on-year. The shipyard performance in Q4 was moderate after an unprecedented exceptional strong performance in Q3. I will now hand off to Fotios who will provide you with an overview of the LNG shipping market. Go ahead, Fotios.
Thank you, Wahid. Hello, everyone. I would like to give you a brief update of the LNG shipping market. In 2022, the global economy was facing one of its biggest energy challenges, as natural gas and LNG prices in particular have been on fire. The natural gas and LNG markets took the center stage in Europe last year as pipe gas flows from Russia were substantially decreased for several reasons. According to Drewry, the global LNG trade reached at 401.4 million tons LNG in 2022. This reflects a rise of 7.8% from last year. As per Affinity, the European LNG demand grew by 48 million tons and reached 132 million tons totally in 2022. This reflects an increase of 57% as the Russia pipe imports gradually disappeared.
In addition, Asia's top five LNG buyers, which is China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Taiwan, import 54.7 million tons in LNG in the Q4 2022, which is down by 10% quarter-over-quarter as per Drewry. Please turn to the slide 12 for our presentation. According to Clarksons, the average port charter rates in 2022 for the new modern vessels was around $168,000 per day. For VFDs was $133,000 per day, and for the steam vessels was $70,000 per day.
Clarksons assessed the average 2022 for 1 year LNG shipping charter rates at high rates at $171,000 per day for the new conventional vessels, $132,000 per day for VFDs and $62,000 per day for the steams. These numbers and figures are very helpful benchmark when and only discuss term charter opportunities. At the page 13 of our presentation, you can see that the global LNG fleet has total 606 vessels in operation in 2022 and another 252 conventional LNG vessels on order book. This is during the period until 2026 after Clarksons. This implies the increase of 42% of total LNG fleet in terms of number of conventional LNG vessels as of the Q4 2022.
The geopolitical uncertainty, the global energy security and the consequent surge in LNG demand will keep the long-term fundamentals of LNG market tight, which will boost the LNG shipping demand. As a final note, I would like to let you know that Nakilat published the latest edition of our Environmental Social Governance report, which is in line with the global international standards and received for the second consecutive year a independent assurance by Ernst & Young that enhance report's credibility towards all the company stakeholders and shareholders. The ESG report reflects our sustainability initiatives, including commitment to reducing carbon emissions, investing in employee development, our dedication to community development, maintaining solid relationship with all our shareholders, suppliers, contractors, and continually investing in the latest technologies. Now I would like to hand it over to Nakilat CFO, Mr. Hani Abuaker, to give you an insight into Nakilat business outlook.
Hani, please go ahead.
Thank you, Fotios. First of all, I am pleased to say that 2022 was another successful year for Nakilat in terms of executing our strategy, which has resulted in achieving a higher profitability for our shareholders. I would like to highlight that Nakilat declared the highest dividend to its shareholders in history since inception, which is equivalent to 0.13 per share. That is in line with our balanced capital allocation strategy, where the short and medium term future growth opportunities have been also considered. We are happy to reward our shareholders based on the company's performance this year and going forward. Nakilat is well funded with over QAR 4 billion on its balance sheet, which will allow the company to deploy these funds for growth opportunities in the coming years once they arise.
In spite of unprecedented high interest rate environment, tightening monetary policy and geopolitical uncertainty, Nakilat managed to navigate through this volatility with a minimal impact on its financial performance. It's worth mentioning that we have already started to observe more activity in our shipyard segment. Nakilat solid foundation of free cash flow will allow the company to take advantage of attractive global business opportunity should they arise and continue to provide sustainable return to our shareholders. I will shortly discuss about Nakilat business outlook for 2023. In a world where we are facing challenging macroeconomic factors, we expect to see another successful year for Nakilat due to the management continued effort to maximize the utilization of our fleet and also optimize our expenses.
The rebound in shipyard segment is evidenced by the strong results in 2022, and the momentum is expected to continue into 2023, particularly with the new drydock cycle of Nakilat fleet coming, commencing very soon. It goes without saying that we continuously screening the global LNG market to identify attractive business opportunity for the long-term benefits of our shareholders. With that, I will ask the operator to open the floor for questions and answers. Please go ahead.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, then please dial into the conference call and press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. As a reminder, please press star followed by one to ask a question. Our first question comes from Santosh Gupta from Drewry Maritime Financial Research. Santosh, please go ahead.
Thank you. We've seen General and Administrative expenses increase by 15.2%, YoY. Also, I think there's slight rise in the operating cost. Just wanted to understand, like, what is your view for the for 2023 on these two costs. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you. I can answer that. The first was related to G&A and the second was related to the operating costs. Looking at just the G&A, first of all, the increase is because of a number of projects that were postponed in the past couple of years, related to IT infrastructure, maintenance, travel, conferences and so on. With the lifting of COVID and restrictions related to that, we've been able to bring forward those past projects that were left on the sideline for the past couple of years. We started to reinstate these costs, conducting much needed infrastructure improvements. Overall our objective continues to be managing our costs in a controlled manner, going into 2023 and the future with balanced spend.
That is for the G&A portion. The other question related to the operating costs. In operating costs, we have had a slight increase in operating costs, but that was expected given the inflation that we have faced in many charges and also because a number of planned operating maintenance activities came forth this year, which were postponed in the past. It's a blend, but we expect all these costs to normalize as we head into 2023. As was mentioned earlier, 2023 has a number of drydocks scheduled as well. We expect at the drydock, the costs for operating to be normalized.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask any further questions, please press star followed by one. Our next question is from Taha Madani, from uncertain. Taha, please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah, thank you for the call. I was looking at the JV performance this year in 2022, and it was excellent. Even if I look at the dividend payout of around 80%, that is also has been obviously much higher than last previous year. Can we expect this to go going forward, this kind of JV performance? I understand that JV contracts are a lot shorter term compared to like the main wholly owned vessels which are based on much longer contracts. Also the shipyard business revenue was, I think 100%. There was a 100% increase this year. Can we expect this going forward or would there be a dip in 2023?
Yeah, maybe I'll answer the questions here. First, is about the joint venture performance. I think we believe that it's supposed to be sustainable into 2023. As you just rightly said, some of them is in a shorter term, which is they're actually benefiting rather than being exposed. I believe that momentum will continue into 2023, and we're already in 2023. So far this is what's the picture we have seen so far that momentum of having, let's say a short-term charter rate at an elevated level is still continuing. In regards to the shipyard, as we just said over the last one year, the shipyard story, it has really turned around. We are already able to generate a good amount of profit.
2022 was also a testament about that turnaround. We think and believe that this will also come into 2023, supported by not only with the turnaround, with the performance and the abilities and et cetera, but also with Nakilat fleet going into the drydock. There's gonna be more sort of a level of workload that's coming in. We should also expect another good year, maybe as good as 2022, but even if it's not as good as '22, it would be something very close to that performance. We should really also expect a good performance from the shipyard group. Dividend distribution, yes. We have one or two joint venture has provided a lot of cash distributed.
We should really expect as, you know, going forward, particularly in some of the even joint venture where they're almost fully hedged 100%. They should also really produce a good dividend distribution to us. Is it gonna be as good? I think it's gonna be as close as good. Okay? You should, it should be still being strong. Okay? I hope I answered all your questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a final reminder to ask any further questions, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We now have a follow-up question from Taha Madani from Phico. Taha, please go ahead.
Hi. Yes. Looking at the swap level, which has gone down this year to QAR 8.6 billion compared to, I think, over QAR 10 billion last year. Is this gonna gradually go down or will there be like a sort of a top-up in this, given that, do you want to be more exposed to the interest rate environment or not? What is your overall view on the shipping rates going forward in 2023? Thank you.
Perhaps I will take this question, and then Hani can elaborate if need be. As far as the exposure to hedge, you may be aware that we're about 10% hedged overall. This is providing a shield against interest rate rises should they happen in the future. Our hedging position continues to remain strong. It's not that we have gone down or looking to go up, it's just that the notional amounts, as a result of repayments and the increase in market values, have caused a change in the value of the loans. We're in a better position compared to past year because we are heavily hedged.
Going forward, should the rates increase, we have a natural hedge, and we will continue to monitor the market to secure ourselves in terms of the hedges to better manage our cash flow. So that is an ongoing process, which we've also stated in the past that we will continue to monitor and do what's best for the organization. Hani, I'm not sure if you'd like to add something further.
There is one question I think for the charter rate that I'll take, but, Hani, you want something else to add on the, what Wahid said?
I would like to add more about, you know, the hedge. I think we are very comfortable with the current level. We don't think that we wanna ever be exposed more to the interest rate fluctuation. We're a shipping company. I think what we have hedged back in the days when we established our company in back 2008, now the picture is changing due to the elevated interest rates. This is why our hedged position is looking or decreasing as much because we mark to market that position. We'll continue, as I said before, we will continue ensuring that we take into consideration all the variabilities or volatilities that comes out of our core business, which is the shipping, try to mitigate that risk.
We don't see... I don't think that we will be exposing ourself more and more to interest rates. We're happy with the level where we are. As Wahid said, as we pay off debts going forward, okay, every year we pay QAR 1 billion, that will allow us to reduce that exposure to interest rate costs coming in despite of the elevated level. I hope we have answered your question. Also, you have to understand there's one thing that people still maybe need to really understand a lot about our balance sheet. I have deposits of almost QAR 4 billion, so this also gets rewarded as the interest rate goes up.
We start to make more income on the interest parts, and that offsets even some of the unhedged position, which is around 25%-30% on the group level. We are very fairly protected to mitigate that impact of elevated interest rates, which is never seen before. Okay? I hope that's all from my side. Maybe Fotios can answer the shipping rate as well.
Yes. Thank you, Hani. In regards with the shipping chartering rates, let me tell you that in 2022, we had extremely high demand of LNG from Europe specifically, as I mentioned earlier, due to unfavorable events that happened in Europe. All this, as a result of these events, you saw Europe to diversify all the pipe gas to LNG and everybody, all the companies tried to secure shipping. As a result of that, we saw skyrocketed, very high hikes of charter rates in 2022. As a result of that, now it's normal to see a kind of normalization of charter rates because already there is everybody has the required shipping, high storage of LNG Europe has.
Now you can see more normalized situation than it was in 2020. What the market's expecting actually to see a normal environment, close to the averages of all these years, which is very good for LNG supplier. The reason is that when the things normalize, it's very good for the entire value chains. The demand will be continued to be strong fundamentally on the long term for the next 10-15 years for LNG because many companies, wants to ensure to have access to LNG, and all the pipe gas, which is very important, and this actually gives a very good boost for LNG market and the demand is there. This will be helpful for the LNG suppliers to satisfy additional co-requirements on the short term and on the long term.
I hope I answered your question.
Yes. Thank you very much. Just another quick question that the dry docking and maintenance activity that you mentioned for 2023, should we expect this to majorly be recorded in the Q4 as in higher, overall higher expenses in the Q4? Would it be more normalized over all of the Q4 of 2023?
We should expect that to normalize back into the levels before. We should be expecting it to be normalized. We should not really see that one non-recurring item. It's one time, so it's not recurring.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We have no further questions. I'll now hand you back over to Fotios Zeritis for closing remarks.
I would like to thanks everybody who attended this call. Always we take the feedback and the questions to our senior management CEO. We discuss the market. We highly appreciate your attendance and always we're available, the CFO, myself, to address any question that you have in the future. Hopefully we'll continue this kind of open communication with you. Now, Hani, do you want something to add? I think we are okay. We have nothing else to add. Thank you very much for everybody.